Beyond the Palette

    Tuesday, October 31st, 2022. I walked into school. Taking my usual route to class, I did everything that I normally would on a day-to-day basis. However, today was different – not in terms of my schedule, but in terms of the sheer spectacle I was about to create. Today just so happened to be a very popular holiday called 'Halloween', and it just so happened to be that I chose to wear a very peculiar costume – a costume only worn by those that don't care about their reputation. Can you guess what it was?  It was a frickin maid costume. I'm not sure what exactly possessed me to do such a horrid thing, but I did it for the poops and giggles I guess. When I had asked my parents to buy this costume, they thought I had hit my head somewhere. Even having to upload photographic evidence of this eye-trash to my blog is making me physically recoil and cover my eyes.     There was one valuable lesson that this experience taught me, however. Within a month, this ma...

Before I start this blog, let me tell you a story. Back in the good old days of 21', my family and I decided to visit The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Of course, I was excited at the time to see the various works of arts from many different artists. When I walked into the museum however, ALL my dreams of watching majestic art completely shriveled away. Instead of seeing majestic pieces, I saw complete paint splatters to just empty canvases. From the absolute dumpster fire in front of my oculars, I only had one lingering thought in my head: "What on God's green earth am I looking at right now??" Sure, some modern art is cool, but you can imagine the disappointment I felt when I thought I would be looking at magnificent landscape paintings, but ended up looking at complete crap. At one of the exhibits, there was LITERALLY just a red square. What could that even possibly mean???? I know art is subjective and all, but I feel like there is a fine line between art hold...

This is how I felt that night (muscles are accurate btw)    It was 2 am, which meant that I had reached the stage of night where everything starts to become either funny or like a hallucination to me. For some reason however, I didn't feel high - I was feeling philosophical. As I read through the required chapter of The Best We Could Do, I felt like an absolute genius, analzying every word and every stroke of paint on the pages. And then, out of nowhere, a bright, metaphorical lightbulb appeared over my head.  Thats when it hit me: the title,  The Best We Could Do,  brings a comletely different meaning and perspective when viewed through an artistic lens. Bui's entire memoir is essentially an act of doing her best: utilizing art, empathy, and research to connect with her audience at a deeper level. In fact, she even admits to this in the preface, acknowledging that she didn't feel like she had "solved the storytelling problem of how to present history in a ...

  November 8th, 2025 Outside, it's 36 degrees F. In the news: Russia launches missiles and drone barrages against Ukraine, resulting in power outages and casualties. Police officer shot and killed in North Carolina hospital .  This saturday, HOSA regionals took place in Troy High. Music. Lights up. Classroom. Dimly lit. Filled with students.  Jayden (handsome asian boy with a chiseled face), luscious hair. He has a crowd of girls behind him, all wanting to get with him. Students sit in their usual seats, having small talk before class starts, Mrs. Valentino (AP Language teacher) sitting comfortably on her rolly chair. The bell rings. Mrs. Valentino: So, did everyone do their homework? Class falls silent and everyone slyly glances at each other in nervousness. Jayden has a smug expression on his face and raises his hand high. Jayden: Of course I did Mrs. Valentino. In fact, I believe I found a really great allusion that even relates to Sweat.  Mrs. Valentino: That sou...

Quietly sitting in my usual seat, I wait as Mrs. Valentino starts to slowly pass out the vocabulary quizzes to everyone. Of course, with my luck, I get the quiz the very last. Nervous, I look down to take a peep at my vocabulary quiz and one big. ugly word flashes through my mind: "Shit." How did these sentences relate in any way to the definitions that I had studied? Did I study the wrong terms? Did I study the wrong set of vocab words? Did I just.... happen to forget? The scenario I just described is very realistic to many people that had to take any form of a memorization based quiz (not me of course since i'm the ultra mega handsome cool super buff Jayden Paik). You study your butt off the night before, only getting a couple of hours of sleep, but then you walk into the test your teacher hands out and all you see is what can be considered equivalent to a caveman looking at calculus for the first time.  No matter how hard you study, you always somehow forget the one to...

Dedicated to my beautiful husband Paul Lei.      Running fast along the road, I finally reached Gatsby’s house. As I dashed to his backyard, I noticed a blotch of dark red, slowly filling the crystal clear waters of his pool. Anxiously glancing towards the source of this disgusting sight, I saw Gatsby. "GATSBY!!! NOOOOO!! WHO DID THIS TO YOU!!!!" I screamed as I ran towards his lifeless body, drifiting around the pool like a lotus flower on a lake. Tears dripping off my cheeks, I was running over to his corpse when I felt the ground seemingly rumble, stopping me in my tracks. It was Gatsby. His body was vibrating hard, creating rough waves in the pool and knocking over plant pots nearby. "G-Gatsby? What's going o-" suddenly, Gatsby's body soared into the air, leaving a big green cloud behind. It turns out, he had a lot of gas pent up, waiting to be released, and when he died, his body wasn't able to hold it back anymore and unleashed the biggest, stinkie...